The Midnight Review

Have you ever wondered how many tiny, perfect things happen every day? From a child’s first successful bike ride to finding a four leaf clover, or a random act of nature like a perfectly cat-shaped cloud?

Well, that’s the premise of this teenage time loop romance, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things. Mark (Kyle Allen) and Margaret (Kathryn Newton) are two high schoolers who find themselves reliving the same day, over and over again. In true Groundhog’s Day fashion, Mark can be seen helping random citizens at specific moments throughout the day, like stopping a man right before he would have been coated in bird poop or giving a girl he has a crush on directions to her destination before she can even ask.

Naturally, Mark and Margaret find each other and realize that while everything else stays the same, they are the random variables. What follows is a cute romantic adventure where they try to solve the time loop, but also decide to enjoy every small moment that they can.

Every day, Mark and Margaret meet up and work together to find the newest “tiny perfect thing.” Mark, a student who wants nothing more than to go to art school, meticulously maps out every perfect thing in town every single day, before the loop resets and he does it all over again so he doesn’t forget.

It’s clear from the beginning that Margaret is hiding a secret, and I won’t spoil it here, but much of the movie focuses on Mark and his journey of personal growth from an egocentric teenage boy who takes everything for granted to a boy who learns to live in and appreciate the moment with those around him.

I think some of my favorite moments in the movie are Mark’s conversations with his best friend Henry (Jermaine Harris), who is not in the time loop and is regularly bewildered by Mark’s lack of explanations but nonetheless often manages to give him helpful advice.

In the end, Mark discovers Margaret’s secret and realizes that she needed the perfect things as much as he did. For reasons unknown, it’s eventually revealed that she caused the time loop and only the two of them can undo it.

The science is not sound or even remotely scientific, which irritated me because Margaret is a science and math nerd who has been desperately searching for the fourth dimension since she was a child. Science and math are not my strong suits, but beyond a vague map=pattern explanation, none of the actual time anomaly made sense or was explained. And Mark being in the time loop wasn’t well explained, either.

I think the focus of the movie was meant to be the personal growth and healing of two teenagers with different perspectives and life experiences. Of course there was also a cute love story and lots of fun comedic moments.

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things kept my attention, but left out some details that were probably explained better in the book. Altogether, I’d rate this film a 5/10. Cute, but not a must see. You’d probably love it if you liked A Fault in Our Stars.